I see that several new packages are updated. I need to ask (I hope this is the right place) will gslapt take care of this or is it something I have to do manually or what? Thanks!

EDIT: I see it probably should have went to installation and updates.....sorry.....

When you say you 'see' that new packages are updated, are you refering to the update announcements I make?

If so, those packages are in the testing repository, where they will stay until they have been tested, or for at least a month if there are no comments on them.

In order to access those packages, you need to enable the testing repo in slapt-get/Gslapt. In Gslapt, go to preferences > sources and tick the testing repo. Then allow Gslapt to update its database. You can then select from any of the testing packages, which should then be pulled down along with any other required packages.

You can either disable testing once you have the packages you are interested in, or leave it enabled. If you do leave it enabled, be cautious about 'mark all upgrades'. While there is no problem doing so to see what packages are more up to date than the packages you have installed, letting the command execute may well break your system, so you need to be selective.

ok Yes, those were the packages I was referring to. I'll just leave things alone for now then as the Old laptop I have Vector on is working okie dokie. I came here (on that machine) from sidux so, I am honestly looking forward to letting things just work for a while. It is certainly pleasurable to just fire it up and it goes. (I've checked for updates on gslapt every day I guess perhaps I can stop that now LOL). Thanks for the information.

Well, every day is probably a bit too frequent to check for updates. But it is worth checking (remembering to update the slapt-get data before you do so), since the packages in testing will (gradually, given the amount of time I have at the moment) be migrated to the normal repos.

One area which is not covered as well as it should be is security related updates. For instance, the most recent versions of Firefox, Seamonkey and Wireshark are all secuity-related updates. I normally try to indicate when that is the case, but, again, its a matter of how much time I have, so it doesn't always happen.

For that type of update, depending on your situation, it may be worth looking at updating before the packages have migrated to the normal repos.